


A Long Story

by athersgeo



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 07:01:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5447492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athersgeo/pseuds/athersgeo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a shot at a difficult conversation. It's a shot at starting a real relationship. It's a shot at getting lost in Paris. It's definitely a long story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Long Story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Muir_Wolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muir_Wolf/gifts).



> Characters belong to Matt Miller, Warner Bros and probably a bundle of other people who aren't me. I'm just borrowing them - seeing as no-one else is using them now! No harm intended, no money made.
> 
> Some lines of dialogue (including the title) are borrowed from "The Last Death of Henry Morgan"
> 
> This is intended to resolve the cliffhanger we were left with. I hope you like it!

Jo parked round the block from the antique store, the watch and photograph burning a hole in her coat pocket. Forensic tests on a tiny sliver of the photographic paper had confirmed what she'd suspected – that it was old; at least fifty years. There was still a mundane explanation for that of course. With the clothes Henry was wearing, it could have been taken at some kind of re-enactment day or some sort of vintage theme park.

Occam's Razor.

The simplest answers were usually the right ones.

And yet, simplest answers and Henry were things that never sat easily with each other. She could have bought the idea of the photo being some kind of artful fake, but then there were the other things she'd found with the photograph: the pocket watch, the fresh pool of blood that still showed the rough outline of a body despite that body no longer being there and, a few yards away, that damned dagger. Jo wasn't sure what it actually added up to, but whatever it was, it was not a simple answer.

She had been sorely tempted to go straight to the antique shop and demand answers, but paperwork had required her to postpone it. She had also needed to chew Lucas out for retrieving the dagger from evidence – even though she'd known he'd do it; had almost wanted him to do it, truthfully, just so she could find out what Henry was going to do - which had been another reason to postpone. Then another case had come up – a mercifully uncomplicated, open-and-shut one that was handled by one of the other M.E.s rather than Henry – and before Jo knew it, nearly a week had passed and she still hadn't confronted Henry about what she'd found.

Even today, she had caught herself finding reasons not to come. Maintaining the relationship she had with Henry in its current state was appealing. It would be easy. Henry was her friend and he was entitled to his secrets.

Except that after the mess with that dagger that relationship had been strained. Hell, she'd followed him into the subway. Not exactly an act of friendship, that. And there was the fact that she half suspected those secrets were the sort that might just, someday, get someone killed.

If they hadn't already.

Jo signed and climbed out of her car. For her own peace of mind, she had to do this.

Rounding the corner, she wasn't altogether surprised to see the shop was closed. Nor was she surprised to see both Abe and Henry inside, playing chess. It was a cosy little scene and she nearly turned round and walked away, but forced herself to walk up to the door, then knock. Henry looked up and saw her and smiled in greeting even as she she sheepishly raised a hand and waved.

Considering their last conversation, this was a far better welcome than Jo had been expecting, somehow.

Then Henry opened the door and greeted her with, "Do you have a new mystery to solve?"

And Jo knew he was hoping she'd just let the whole dagger mess go. Pretend nothing had happened.

Pretend everything was normal.

For just a moment, she hesitated. Then in her pocket, her fingers closed around the watch. "Yeah, you could say that." She withdrew her hand and showed him the watch.

There was barely a moment of hesitation from Henry before he started to spin the inevitable cockamamie story, even as he took possession of the watch once more. His smile never wavered as he spoke, but Jo thought she could detect a desperation to the expression. As if he was begging her to accept his story, as thin and flimsy as it was.

And Jo just couldn't do that. Not any more. "You know, I figured you'd say that." She pulled the photograph out of her pocket. "I also found this."

She watched as Henry froze, expression veering from openly terrified to unreadable. 

It was almost funny seeing the grandiloquent Henry Morgan at a total loss for words. It was alarming, too. Just what did the photo mean?

"Tell her," said Abe who had, almost unnoticed, joined them in the doorway. 

Something about the way he said those words made it sound as if this was far from the first time Abe had uttered them.

For a moment longer, Henry stood still and silent. Then he sighed and his expression muted into plain nervousness. "It's a long story."

Jo opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, Henry was stepping backwards.

"You'd better come in."

And for the first time that morning, he'd managed to surprise her. Abe smirked, muttered something about making drinks and headed for the shop's upper floor. And still Jo remained on the doorstep.

"Well, Detective?" Henry still looked nervous, but his mouth was curving upwards with faint amusement. "You've been bold this far."

Jo shook herself and stepped into the shop. He was right. She'd been bold – time to hear what she'd come for.

To her surprise, however, Henry didn't lead her upstairs after he'd relocked the shop door. Instead he led her down into the basement workroom she'd once raided. Back then, it had been a little creepy and quite a lot incriminating, but the intervening months had given her a new perspective. Whatever else Henry was – or was not – he most definitely was a scientist, and this basement was his sanctuary. His lab.

"You, ah, might want to take a seat," he directed.

There weren't a wealth of options on that front, Jo noted. A padded exam couch seemed the best option, so she perched there, while Henry took up a position before her, leaning back against a workbench with his arms crossed in front of his chest. It was a pose that radiated tension.

Jo felt a fleeting guilt at forcing this confession, but there was no way to stop it now. So she waited.

And waited.

For a second time, it seemed as if Henry was searching for words that refused to come. And then he found them: "I suppose," he said hesitantly, "I could try to convince you that the photograph is a forgery."

"Is it?"

Henry shook his head. "Nor is it some kind of coincidence." He swallowed. "It shows me, and Abe, and Abigail. It was taken on the day we celebrated as Abe's birthday. His third birthday."

Just in case she'd been under any illusions that Henry was the small boy in the image and not the grown man who looked the same now as he'd done fifty or more years ago.

"I realise how absurd that sounds," Henry continued.

"No, I really don't think you do," Jo retorted. "And the most absurd part is: I believe you."

At that, a little of Henry's tension seemed to lift. "You do?"

Jo shrugged. "I know the paper of that photo's at least fifty years old. I got Lucas to run some tests." Henry's mouth hinged open in comical shock. "He didn't see the photo. Just a sample." Henry's mouth closed with a snap. "So yeah, I believe you. What I don't understand is how any of it is even possible."

Oddly, Henry huffed out a laugh and rubbed the back of his neck with a hand. "That is one mystery I cannot solve for you, Detective. I don't understand it, either. It just…is."

"Huh." That wasn't something Jo was expecting. She'd grown used to Henry having all the answers and the idea of him not having one was unsettling. And then something else made sense. "You died."

Henry's smile faded into ruefulness. "You'll have to be more specific, Detective."

"Last week," Jo answered automatically. Then she realised what she'd answered. "You've died more than once?"

Henry bowed his head. "Never permanently, as you can see." He sighed. "As for last week, yes."

"Your body wasn't there."

"No. So I'm told, once my body ceases to draw breath, it vanishes and I reappear in a body of water nearby. Lately, it's been the East River."

More things made sense. "That's why you were skinny dipping after that subway crash!"

And despite that particular event being more than nine months earlier, Henry still looked embarrassed by the reminder. "Yes, well. Believe me, if I had any say in the matter, the East River would not be my first choice."

"Yeah, guess not. How'd you avoid getting arrested this time?"

"Abe was waiting for me."

"You knew you were going to get shot?" Jo stared at him, incredulous. "Why would you—why would you do that?"

"Because it seemed like the only way of dealing with a particularly unpleasant individual with an animus against both me and those around me." Henry shrugged a little awkwardly. "I hoped it wouldn't come to that. Dying is hardly pleasant."

There was a sense of understatement to those words that made Jo shy away from asking for more details. Instead, she said, "So how long has this...whatever it is been going on?"

Henry hesitated for a moment, and for the length of that moment, Jo feared he was going to name some number of years that was beyond her comprehension. "Two hundred years. I was born in 1779 and should have died in 1814."

She sighed with relief. As much as living for more than two hundred years was mind blowing, at least it was a span of time she could work with. Even if it still didn't fully explain the dagger mess. “So you're not Julius Caesar in disguise?” She didn't miss the way Henry flinched at that. "But someone else is?"

Again Henry appeared lost for words, though this time his silence didn't last long. "There is someone who claims to be of that sort of age," he said carefully.

Jo snorted. "Lemme guess: the unpleasant individual with a bug up his butt."

Henry winced and said nothing.

"Henry—"

"He's dealt with. He and I came to an...agreement."

The words were bitten off as if they offended Henry somehow, and Jo could see that 'agreement' was clearly a euphemism for something. She was tempted to push for a better explanation, but something about Henry's posture and expression, which were both radiating tension again, persuaded her not to.

There would likely be time for that later.

Then she found herself giggling. Henry, at least, clearly had nothing but time and could, probably, wait her out. If she wanted to know about this other-- "What do you call yourself?"

Henry eyed her oddly. "Henry Morgan – Dr Henry Morgan, if you're going to be formal."

Jo waved the comment off. "I mean...you and others like you. Is there a proper term?"

Now Henry looked amused. "I'm not one to become hung up on terminology, Detective. So far as I've found, I appear to be immune to death. What would you term that?"

"Immortality – but that just makes me think of bad fantasy films." Jo paused. "You don't--"

"No, I do not go around decapitating others of my kind," said Henry with a roll of his eyes. "Abe forced me to watch that film when it first came out. So to answer your next question, no I can't breath under water. Or any of the other silly things that film came up with."

"So immortality with a little i then," said Jo.

"If you must." But if his words sounded put-out, his expression suggested he was far more amused by the whole exchange than anything else.

Jo nodded slowly."How many people have you told this to?"

"Before today, just one."

Jo's eyes widened. "Just one? In two hundred years?"

"I never had to tell Abe – he grew up with it. Abigail found out. There was a Catholic priest who guessed, more or less."

"And the person you told?"

Henry winced. "Nora Morgan, my first wife. Let's just say it did not go well and leave it at that."

That was clearly another piece of masterly understatement, and another thing that Jo decided not to pursue further. For one thing, she could well imagine the sort of reaction he might have received. Hell, if it hadn't been for that photograph, she'd probably think he was nuts – or else some kind of pathological liar. But that was the thing of it: she did have the photograph, and she'd known him long enough to know that, if not necessarily the whole truth, he'd certainly told a good proportion of it. And, as stories went, this one hung together far better than some of his attempts at covering.

"And now you know all this, Detective, what do you plan on doing?"

Jo jerked at the question. "Doing?"

"There must be a reason why you've chosen to dig this up."

Jo nodded. "For nine months you haven't made sense. Now, you do."

Henry blinked. "I haven't made sense?" he echoed, looking somewhat insulted.

"What modern man doesn't carry a cellphone?"

"A man who is hardly modern at all."

Jo turned to see Abe standing on the stairs, watching events with undisguised amusement.

Henry snorted. "Abraham--"

"I know, I know. Coffee's getting cold." Abe turned to go back up the stairs. "Maybe Detective Martinez will have better luck than I have."

Jo's gaze swivelled back to Henry. "Do I even want to know?"

At that, Henry's head tipped back and he laughed. "He's been trying to persuade me a cellphone is not the devil's invention – a fact that I know full well. I just--"

Jo's cellphone began to ring.

Henry gestured with his hands. "I do not like to live my life fully connected twenty-four hours a day. Sometimes, it's good to be invisible."

As Jo pulled the noisy device out of her pocket she realised there was a dual aspect to Henry's words. It wasn't just the modern concept of trying to get away from it all. He, more than anyone, would have a desire to be, if not fully off-grid, at least barely attached. Then she glanced at the screen and grimaced. The caller ID said it was Hanson. "Looks like we've got a case."

"I'll collect my bag." And he headed up the stairs, two and three steps at a time.

She barely heard him over Hanson's description of the scene, which finished up, "And make sure you bring Henry – he's gonna wanna see this for himself."

Hanging up, Jo headed up the stairs, shaking her head.

"So? We do have a new mystery to solve?" Henry was waiting at the top of the stairs as Jo reached the top, his bag at his feet, his coat on.

"Yes, we do." She paused. "So, you ever seen a mermaid, Henry?"

"Mermaids? Really, Jo?"

And just like that, things were utterly normal again. 

Or maybe they weren't. For the first time since meeting him nine months earlier, Jo felt as if she finally, actually knew who Henry Morgan was. They were on the same footing now and where they'd go from this point would be anyone's guess. Maybe no where further than crime scenes and occasional drinks. Maybe it would be all the way to Paris and getting lost in some out of the way corner of that city.

Jo smiled.

Either way, it would be fun finding out.


End file.
